Elementary Statistics, Sixth Edition (Bluman)

Chapter 3: Data Description

How Long Are You Delayed by Road Congestion?

No matter where you live, at one time or another, you have been stuck in traffic. To see whether there are more traffic delays in some cities than in others, statisticians make comparisons using descriptive statistics. A statistical study by the Texas Transportation Institute found that a driver is delayed by road congestion an average of 36 hours per year. To see how selected cities compare to this average, see Statistics Today—Revisited at the end of the chapter.

This chapter will show you how to obtain and interpret descriptive statistics such as measures of average, measures of variation, and measures of position.